IN HIS CAPACITY as director of rugby at UCD, Bobby Byrne sees plenty of gifted athletes walk through the door, the type of young men you just know are going to go to the very top in the sport.
Josh van der Flier was not one of them.
“When he came in at first I didn’t expect him to go to where he has gone now,” says Byrne. “He was definitely in the shadow of some higher profile players. He came in (to UCD) really under the radar, because he wasn’t a high profile schools player.”
Not quite a superstar in waiting, but a promising talent nonetheless. Rugby ran in the blood, with Van der Flier’s father, Dirk, a former Leinster U21s player. Playing underage at Wicklow RFC, Van der Flier remembers dreaming of playing for Leinster and Ireland before he knew it could be a job.
The desire and dedication was there from a young age, the size would come later. At Wesley College he played scrum-half and worried about his frame before a welcome growth spurt arrived around the age of 16. Now playing in the backrow, the energetic young forward began to catch the eye.
“I would have seen some footage of him playing for Wesley, and even back then he was wearing the signature red scrum cap. He was easy enough to spot,” Byrne explains.
“It was fairly obvious that he was a hugely energetic player with a very impressive workrate, but he wouldn’t have had the physical profile at that stage which would have suggested he would go on to achieve what he has.”
Van der Flier joined the Leinster sub-Academy and began to hone his skills at UCD, where after struggling for gametime across the early stages of his time at the college, he eventually pushed himself into the starting team and impressed at AIL level before making the jump with Leinster.
“He has always been very focused, but the one thing (that stood out), there was a reliability about him,” Byrne continues.
“The consistency in his performance was always there. I don’t remember him ever having a poor game, and he gained the respect of everybody very quickly.
His rate of progression was really, really impressive. He had this infectious enthusiasm that rubbed off on everybody on the team, but he was really focused on improving match by match and just had that huge determination all the time to get better. The last season he played for us was 2014/15, and he played a couple of AIL matches in that season where it was fairly obvious that he was going on to bigger things.”
Spoiler alert: there’s no big secret coming here. No radical training regime, no Mister Miyagi-type imparting great wisdom. Josh van der Flier just put his head down and got on with the work.
The next challenge was the biggest yet. Van der Flier walked into the Leinster dressing room and looked around at the backrow competition. Sean O’Brien, Rhys Ruddock, Jamie Heaslip, Jordi Murphy, Dominic Ryan, Jack Conan.
It’s one thing to get your foot in the door at Leinster, but only the really exceptional players get to hang around for the long run.
His first chance came in October 2014, and the 21-year-old started as he meant to go on. In a relatively low-key affair, the young flanker went about his business diligently, delivering an 80 minute performance in a 20-3 win away to Zebre.
A solid start, but Van der Flier understood the work that would be required to make a real impression in a star-studded squad, and took the proactive approach.
Shane Jennings was a particular help, meeting Van der Flier for early morning chats about the tactical and mental challenges of playing elite senior rugby. Sean O’Brien, Isa Nacewa and Richardt Strauss also played their part.
Having played six times for Leinster across that 2014/15 season, head coach Leo Cullen felt Van der Flier was ready for more.
“He’s really impressed in both defence and the pace he hits on with the ball,” Cullen explained. “He deserves to play well because you see how good the guy works day in, day out and it’s nice to see those guys getting a reward for the hard work they put in.”
The following season Van der Flier exploded after moving up to a senior contract, making 13 starts across 18 appearances in the blue jersey – he’s only eclipsed that once since [22 apps, 2016/17] – and was named in the Pro12 Team of the Season.
Others took note. On 27 February, 2016, Van der Flier made his Ireland debut, Joe Schmidt starting the flanker away to England in the Six Nations just 16 months into his senior rugby career. He kept his place for the game against Italy but slipped back out of the mix for the final game against Scotland.
It was the start of a trend that has followed Van der Flier throughout his international career, with a series of impressive displays often followed by a spell out of the team. Ireland have played 62 matches since Van der Flier’s Test debut, and he’s been capped in exactly half of those. In 2017 he featured only twice off the bench in the Six Nations. The following year, his season was ended just 37 minutes into the opening round win over France.
Just as he was starting to establish himself in the starting team, Van der Flier ended up watching on from the sidelines as Ireland captured the 2018 Grand Slam and Leinster stormed to a brilliant Champions Cup and Pro14 double. But Van der Flier has always responded to setbacks in admirable fashion
“It’s easy to get caught behind, then come back thinking ‘I don’t know if I’m good enough anymore, I’ve been out a year, I’m rusty’,” he later explained. “It’s just to try and not get down on yourself and then try to come back better.”
When he plays – particularly at international level – it’s striking how often he stands out as one of the most impressive players on the pitch.
If there’s been one criticism of his game, it’s perhaps that he doesn’t play with the same bit of bite that players like Sean O’Brien and Denis Leamy brought to the table. It’s something that was put to him after Leinster’s Champions Cup defeat to Saracens in 2020.
“It’s balance,” he explained. “Coming up through the under-age ranks in the Leinster Academy, sometimes I’d be playing seven and you’d have it in your head… I remember one coach used to term it a bit of mongrel, being aggressive… But then I learned how much it is about thinking as well, doing the smart things and being technically good.
“For example, in the ruck, you can be very aggressive and hit people really hard in the ruck. Or else you can just try to get there first. Then there’s no contest at all. That’s an example of being smarter rather than being overly aggressive.”
That’s always been Van der Flier’s game. As Leinster made a winning start to their United Rugby Championship season last weekend he was once again to the fore, topping the stats for most tackles (20) and breakdown arrivals (26).
“That just seems to be in his DNA,” Byrne says. “Even from the very first time I saw him play, he had a workrate and an attitude about him that singled him out a little bit.”
That work ethic hasn’t faded. Last season, Van der Flier spoke of how he was trying to become more explosive with his ball-carrying. He’s never scored more than three tries in a season for Leinster. He watched how Caelan Doris was building power to break tackles. He studied clips with Stuart Lancaster. He met Denis Leamy for a chat. He made his notes and did the work.
At the Aviva last Saturday, he bounced Bulls lock Ruan Nortje on his way to scoring Leinster’s opening try of the 2021/22 season as he closed in on his 100th Leinster cap, which comes against the Dragons tomorrow.
You could argue that off the pitch is where Van der Flier really stands out. Time and again over the course of his career, his attitude and dedication has been highlighted as exceptional.
Leinster teammate Peter Dooley offered a simple example last season after the pair had moved in together during the first lockdown, building a makeshift gym in the back garden to keep ticking over as the rugby season was put on hold.
“I’d be trying to get him to have an ice cream one of the nights and he wouldn’t even dabble, even though we weren’t going to be playing for a few months,” Dooley said. “He’s something else, the ultimate professional.”
“It’s hard sometimes to quantify why some guys make it to the really serious stuff and some guys don’t,” Byrne adds. “But Josh just had that steely determination and was absolutely and utterly dedicated to improving.
“In a very nice and quiet way, he was absolutely determined to do all the right things to get himself there.”
Ninety-nine Leinster caps later, the hard work continues to pay off.
Bernard Jackman, Murray Kinsella and Gavan Casey chat all things URC and Ireland Women on the latest episode of The42 Rugby Weekly.
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